Computing devices, such as mobile devices and/or desktop devices, typically execute various applications over a period of time. In many instances, these applications are capable of sharing or otherwise exchanging data via one or more application programming interfaces (API's) during execution. In some cases, rather than sharing or exchanging data directly with each other, these applications may store data to or retrieve data from a system clipboard. In these cases, applications may effectively be capable of indirectly exchanging data, even if these applications are not executing at the same time.
For example, during execution of a word processing application, and in response to a user request to perform a copy operation, the word processing application may copy selected data that is currently visible on a display screen to a system clipboard. At a later point in time, during execution of a spreadsheet application, and in response to a user request to perform a paste operation, the spreadsheet application may paste the previously copied data from the system clipboard into one or more cells of a spreadsheet that is currently visible on the display screen. The paste operation may be performed even if the word processing application is no longer an executing process, because the data is retrieved from the system clipboard rather than directly from the word processing application.